Come Fly with Me

By Gina Welborn and Becca Whitham

A Montana Brides Romance

New beginnings await in Helena, the Montana Territory’s most exciting city—where faithful hearts stay strong and true as they pursue their passionate dreams.

Dedicated schoolteacher Luanne Palmer is forbidden to engage in public courtship. So she hides her feelings for Roy Bennet, the free-spirited journalist who has her in awe of his hot air ballooning adventures. In any case, with his roving lifestyle and career ambitions, Roy hardly seems suited to the home life Luanne desires. She will simply have to resist his charms until he leaves town on his next assignment.

But when Roy hears that Luanne’s students are enthralled in the craft of ballooning, he can’t pass up the opportunity to impress Luanne in her classroom. Soon, Luanne must decide how much to risk on a love that challenges everything she thought she wanted . . . and only a heart-pounding race among the clouds will determine which direction their future takes . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zebra Books
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781420144031

Gina Welborn

GINA WELBORN worked in news radio until she fell in love with writing romance novels. She’s the author of ten inspirational romances, including the 2014 Selah finalist “Mercy Mild” in ECPA-bestselling Mistletoe Memories. She serves on the ACFW Foundation Board by helping raise funds for scholarships. Gina lives with her pastor husband, three of their five children, several rabbits and guinea pigs, and a dog that doesn’t realize rabbits and pigs are edible. Visit her online at GinaWelborn.com.

Book preview

lips.

Chapter One

Central Secondary School

Helena, Montana Territory

September 9, 1886

Please, let him not be here.

As Luanne Palmer climbed the stairs to the second floor, she muttered please after please. She reached the top, then turned the corner and paused. The door at the far end of the hall was closed, but that didn’t mean anything. So were all the other doors. She touched her belly, only the action did little to dispel the flutters. Bad enough that she felt them when Roy Bennett looked at her. Now, heaven help her, they started at the mere dread over seeing him. Here. Building a fire in her classroom’s potbellied stove. Monday’s surprise appearance had shocked her to the point that all she’d been able to do was murmur thanks.

Tuesday—another fire.

Wednesday—one again.

Why? Her sister said it was because he had fond feelings for her, and this was his attempt to show them, to garner her attention. Luanne groaned inwardly. If he had feelings for her, then she must do something to discourage them—like go to her mother and request that her brother’s new friend be politely kicked out of the house as a guest. But Mother collected stray people the way some collected stray animals. She would never rescind an offer of hospitality, especially when their guest was still recovering from his broken forearm. No help would come from Father, either. Not when Roy Bennett had done nothing to deserve banishment. He’d been the epitome of politeness. What could Luanne say? That their guest needed to go because she couldn’t control her racing heart and fluttering stomach?

No, it was up to Luanne to handle her own emotions and make it clear that she had no interest in a romantic attachment to a man who flew from one place to another to chase adventure. Considering the obvious hints she’d dropped at dinner last night, odds were Roy Bennett wouldn’t be here today.

Surely he wouldn’t.

Please let him not be.

Her father had understood her hints. Before she left the house this morning, he told her she should outright tell Mr. Roy Bennett to stop building the fires if that’s what she wanted.

And it was what she wanted. It was!

At the sound of a squeak, she cast a nervous glance down the stairs leading to the building’s first floor. None of her fellow teachers appeared. Of course, it was a full twenty minutes before she expected any of them to arrive to start the day. No one ever arrived before seven

A.M.

, except for her and the janitor.

And—this week—Roy Bennett.

Luanne drew in a breath and started forward, her boots clicking against the floorboards. Logic said he wasn’t here. He’d been out late last night ballooning with her brother and hadn’t been at breakfast.

But what if he was here?

Roy Bennett in her classroom was a problem. She should have discouraged him from building a morning fire after the first time, but she’d hated the thought of hurting the man’s feelings—after all, it hadn’t taken her a week of knowing Roy Bennett to realize he enjoyed helping others. Just like she enjoyed being nice. Not only did she like being considerate of others’ feelings, she liked living in a town where people knew she was nice . . . or at least knew her by her Luanne Palmer is such a nice girl reputation.

Roy Bennett wasn’t from around these parts, which was her second problem. He wasn’t from anywhere, as far as she could tell. Based off the stories he’d shared about his travels, he drifted into one town and on to the next like one of the hot air balloons he raced. Once the upcoming balloon race was over, he’d leave Helena. He’d made that clear the day her brother, Geddes, brought his new friend back from a balloon race in Butte, Montana, where they’d been competitors. Roy Bennett, his left arm splinted and tied in a sling, promised to be no trouble and to leave as soon as the Helena Fall Festival was over.

Luanne nipped her bottom lip as she neared her classroom. She couldn’t smell smoke. Then again, the door was closed. If he was in there—

She stopped just before her classroom door with the familiar T

ENTH

G

RADE

etched in the glass, beyond where Roy could see her if he looked her way. Her hands clenched together.

She didn’t want to see him.

Yet the flutters grew frantic. The flutters made her toes inch forward. The flutters caused her to hope he was in her classroom again.

That was her third problem—and the biggest one of all. She wasn’t just attracted to his devastating smile. Or to how his dark beard couldn’t disguise the dimples that dented his cheeks. Or to the twinkle in his blue eyes whenever he looked her way. Since Roy Bennett had arrived in Helena six weeks ago, she’d woken every morning in anticipation of seeing him, of listening to stories of his travels, of talking to him about anything and everything.

Even if she could toss away her qualms over problems one and two of why she should not be attracted to Roy Bennett, she couldn’t ignore problem four.

Her teaching contract.

For the next school year, she’d agreed not to court any man, not to be alone in a room with one. She’d agreed to remain a spinster. To live according to the Board of Trustees’ morality code, regardless of how ridiculously high the standards were. Thus, no matter what feelings she had for Roy Bennett, in light of her contract, they were moot. Her heart needed to accept the fact he was leaving Helena in three weeks. In twenty-five days, to be precise.

Luanne placed one hand on her racing heart and inhaled slowly through her nose in hopes of ebbing her pulse. She exhaled as slowly through an O in her lips. No more secret indulgences. Today she would do the right—and nice—thing and recuse him from building a morning fire for her class. Before she was caught admiring him.

She stepped closer to the door, reaching for the—

Miss Palmer? Archibald Tate’s nasal voice held a note of censure.

Her heart began a sudden drumming against her chest. Where had he come from?

Luanne squared her shoulders. With an expression she hoped was an appropriate mix of pleasant surprise, quiet authority, and proper humility, she turned to face him. Good morning, Professor Tate. You’re here early.

He dipped his balding head to stare at her over his wire-rimmed glasses. As are you.

It’s my usual time, she couldn’t help clarifying.

After a little hmmph, he said, I hope I’m not interrupting anything . . . ? He let the sentence dangle with an inflection he considered a subtle attempt to guilt people into confessing their sins.

After nine years of working for the man, Luanne knew better than to take the bait. She’d once overheard him tell a board member that he often left sentences unfinished because how people filled in the thought told him what secrets they were trying to keep. She had no secrets.

Save for one.

From the look in Professor Tate’s eyes, he knew about Roy Bennett’s unnecessary fires and disapproved of his presence altogether. That, if it were up to him, Mr. Tate would ban Mr. Orey, the janitor, from allowing any unauthorized person access to the school. Such a ban, however, would stop fathers and brothers from building fires later in the year—something the Board of Trustees would never allow because, then, either they would have to help with the fires themselves or pay someone else to do it.

Luanne resisted the urge to glance at her classroom door. From this angle, Mr. Tate couldn’t see the potbellied stove in the center of the room. Or Roy.

She gave him her blandest smile. Of course you aren’t interrupting. She motioned to her door. Would you like to come in and see? Today we are beginning our study on Mendeleev’s periodic table of elements.

His pointy chin dipped even lower, his glasses sliding, and his eyebrows lifted higher.

Luanne did her best to maintain her smile under his intense and uncomfortable appraisal.

No need, he finally said in that usual tone, as uppity as the cravat he wore with his three-piece suit. You asked for time to think about my proposal. He eased closer. It’s been eleven days.

Luanne held her ground despite the need to put distance between them. I’ve been busy attending to the end of the last school year and preparing for the new one. Of course, once school began . . . you know how much a teacher has to do. I also have my responsibilities at church and with the Ladies Aid Society.

Her excuses didn’t appear to mollify him. With my wife’s unexpected passing, the board deems it in the school’s best interest for me to remarry quickly. His gaze shifted to her hands, yet (thankfully) he didn’t grab one. Children are best raised with a mother to give them undivided attention, don’t you agree? Women with experience teaching make the best mothers.

Miss Babcock mentioned at the Independence Day Social how she would like to marry and have children. Perhaps you should discuss this with her.

Why settle for anyone except the best?

She didn’t respond—not with a smile or a nod or anything that he could misconstrue as her welcoming his attentions. What could she say?

That her one and only marriage proposal had come eleven days ago from the man a mere week after his wife’s funeral was humiliating enough. Did he think she was desperate to marry? She didn’t feel desperate. Nor did she have any empathetic feelings for the six Tate children, who according to Mr. Tate, desperately needed a new mother to help them overcome their loss. She’d been a coward for not declining his proposal immediately. It seemed best to spare his feelings. Why couldn’t her signature on her teaching contract be answer enough to his proposal?

If she married him, she would have to